Indigenous health experts at the University of Toronto are running a COVID-19 vaccination clinic for Toronto’s Indigenous communities – part of an effort to marry public health measures with culturally appropriate care.
The pop-up clinics on campus began in early April and runs once a week throughout May. The effort will continue until the community is vaccinated.
Rather than the anonymity of a mass vaccination effort, the focus is on a personalized experience without time restraints that is in keeping with traditional values, says clinic co-founder Suzanne Stewart, director of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s Waakebiness-Bryce Institute of Indigenous Health.
“We have an Elder outside greeting people as they come in and youth smudging people in the clinic,” says Stewart, who is an associate professor. “Because of the history and current context of harm by the biomedical system on Indigenous people, we emphasized making this a culturally safe and culturally based clinic.